As competition season gets underway, I thought this would be the place to post results. A Gold Medal for my Weizen in the German Wheat & Rye Beer category at the Alameda County Fair (Northern California)!!

I'll be brewing this one again next month with an auction winner who won a brew day I put up to support my son's high school music program.

Thanks! I think I was trying to match a Dortmund, Germany profile. It was the very first recipe on my BM20 and I was still a little enamored with trying to make my water the same as the local water of leading commercial examples. Since then, I've settled on an approach more like Palmer suggests for managing residual alkalinity - much fewer adjustments... but now that I've won a comp with a crazy water profile, I might have to revisit that decision!

Also, if anyone is wondering, my fermentation schedule was very simple - 17C for 13 days. I oxygenated before pitching the WLP300. Reached final gravity (1.011) after 3 days. Did not filter.

The Dortmund water profile that you were targeting is built into BeerSmith or you have obtained the data from another source?

I know, it's a crazy profile - 535 Bicarb!! I have to plead ignorance. I think I used Beersmith as the base, but I edited the profile from what the program came with. I have NO idea where the adjustments came from. It may have just been the closest I was able to get with the salts on hand.

cpa4ny wrote:Looks great; besides the different water profile, will you be keeping all the other aspects of your Weizen recipe ceteris paribus?

Well, close. Just one inconsequential change other than water treatment, I've dialed in my grain absorption better, so the water volumes will be slightly different and I only sparge with 2.5 liters for most brews now. Even the ambient temp should be just about what it was when I brewed last year We shall see if I can recreate it!